As far as horrible Twitter messages go, this one was pretty tame. All Lovato's hater said was "fatty", which seems like nothing until you remember that Lovato has been very open with the world about her eating disorder and the pressures of physical perfection that led to it and to her stint in rehab in 2010. Words hurt and, for someone like Lovato, a word like that can hurt a lot. However, instead of ignoring it or brooding over it, both of which would have been pretty viable options, Lovato decided to make it into a learning experience for all of her fans.

It's a very good thing that she put the second tweet up, because Lovato then followed up with an example. She retweeted the hateful comment and responded with a more positive one of her own:

Considering how passionate Demi Lovato's fans can be when they feel their queen is threatened — take Kathy Griffin for example — it might not have been a good idea for Lovato to point their ire in the direction of someone's Twitter. However, the message that she's trying to spread goes beyond revenge and pettiness, beyond logging on to the Internet with nothing better to do than tweet insults at people you don't know. It's easy to say you stand for love, positivity and anti-bullying, but it's harder to prove when your fans are a notoriously vicious bunch perfectly willing to do the bullying for you.

Lovato taking a stand for herself and proving that she is not her fan base was a good thing both for her and for the Lovatics. Maybe seeing her and the way she prefers to deal with her haters might get them to calm down next time they see a threat. After all, there's more than one way to fight back.